The GGS Vocal Showcase is an opportunity to see all the current vocal students at the school in recital. It’s interesting because it’s an opportunity to “talent spot” and to see how one’s favourites from previous years are progressing. But it’s important to calibrate. The talent on show ranges from first year undergrad to post grads. That’s a six year span; enough university to take one from A levels to PhD when I was a lad. Nobody should expect the standard to be even.
To Heliconian Hall last night for a short concert of songs by Danika Lorèn. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The songs were split up into sets of one or two and sung/accompanied by UoT grad students. The standard of performance was pretty decent but it was very noticeable that when Danika and Stéphane Mayer inserted themselves into the proceedings everything got turned up a couple of notches. As Danika said to me “not a student anymore” while hinting at a significant numerological event.
The gang minus the composer
Lagrime di San Pietro is the final masterpiece of Renaissance composer Orlando di Lasso. It sets 21 poems by Luigi Tansillo on the general theme of Peter’s regret at betraying Christ and his lifelong regret for that. They also deal with the end of life when the nearness of death and the pain of living make one long for death. There’s even one poem where Peter regrets that he, who has seen Christ raise the dead and heal the lame, can no longer remember it happening. Unsurprisingly they were banned by the Catholic Church and so di Lasso can have had no expectation that the work, composed in the last weeks of his life would ever be performed. Structurally the work is seven part polyphony sung a capella. There are 20 eight line madrigals plus a motet.
This Is How We Got Here is a play by Keith Barker that opened at the Aki Studio last night. It’s about grief and how an event can affect multiple relationships at multiple levels. It’s very cleverly crafted with a non linear time line so I am going to be somewhat evasive about the plot because spoilers would spoil it.
Yesterday afternoon I attended the first concert of the year for the Mazzoleni Songmasters series with Leslie Ann Bradley, Allyson McHardy and Rachel Andrist presenting a programme entitled Sirens; structured around the Four Elements. There was a strong slant towards women composers with the programme anchored around four duets from Elizabeth Raum’s Sirens cycle. Unsurprisingly perhaps a lot of the material was quite unfamiliar with a sprinkling of more familiar fare from the likes of Schumann.
I’m a big fan of taking classic song cycles and giving them a treatment other than the very formal Liederabend approach; fond as I am of that! So I was intrigued to see what Philippe Sly and Le Chimera Project would make of Schubert’s Winterreise.
The opening concert of the 21C festival featured an all Osvaldo Golijov programme presented by Against the Grain Theatre. It was preceded by a very informative conversation between Joel Ivany and the composer. My main takeaway from that is that Golijov writes for people not instruments. If the people he has in mind for a piece play a certain combination of instruments that’s what he will write for and if circumstances demand it he will readily make changes. We saw that last night when cantor Alex Stein was unable to perform in K’vakaret (for cantor and string quartet) and Juan Gabriel Olivares stepped in on clarinet instead.
My review of Johann Strauss’ The Gypsy Baron performed by Toronto Operetta Company is up on the Opera Canada website.
Meghan Lindsay as Saffi in Toronto Operetta Theatre’s The Gypsy Baron. Photo: Gary Beechey
The Ward Cabaret, which opened at Harbourfront last night, is an exuberant celebration of the Ward; a Toronto neighbourhood that once covered the area bounded by Queen and College and Yonge and University. From the mid 1800s until well into the 20th century it was far from the highly respectable quartier it’s become. It was the first landing place for immigrants; Irish, Jews, Chinese, fugitive slaves, Italians. A neighbourhood of low rent housing, cheap restaurants, the factories that fed Mr. Eaton’s catalogue and a bunch of rather more dubious businesses. The City Fathers hated it but it had a life of its own that David Buchbinder (he of Yiddish Glory) and his team have turned into a spectacular evening of theatre/cabaret.
It’s the fifth year that Soundstreams has put on Electric Messiah which I guess means it’s pretty much becoming a holiday tradition. This iteration may just be the best yet. This version seemed quite stripped down compared to some years and all the better for it. It’s centred around rearranged (and shortened) excerpts from the Handel work supplemented with some personal touches for the cast. This time the “band” was Wesley Shen on harpsichord, Joel Visentin on keyboards and electric organ, Joel Schwartz on assorted acoustic and electric guitars and Adam Scime directing from the (laptop) keyboard which controlled lots of effective electronics. SlowPitchSound was there on turntables with Lybido dancing.
operaramblings 